


It's Quiet Uptown

by Cyane (orphan_account)



Category: Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Character Study, Flashbacks, Identity, Implied/Referenced Torture, Nightmares, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Spoilers, Tony Stark Has Issues, Waterboarding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-30
Updated: 2017-04-30
Packaged: 2018-10-26 00:11:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,069
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10775394
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/Cyane
Summary: Tony Stark couldn't swim after Afghanistan.(And so forth.)





	It's Quiet Uptown

**Author's Note:**

> Long stretch, but still better than the fill I did for 'dawn'. So.  
> Enjoy r whatever
> 
> [TW]

Tony Stark couldn't swim after Afghanistan.

Alright- there's a lot of things he can't do after Afghanistan, more _pressing_ things, like sleeping. But no matter how unhealthy his sleep patterns are, he still manages to get an hour in here or there, even if he is plagued with nightmares the whole time. Technically, he's still sleeping enough to live.  
Swimming? That's a different story. 

After he arrives back home, back from the hellish cave where he and Yi-

_Damn._

-where he was kept hostage, Tony couldn't even bathe properly. For two weeks, no showers, no baths, no sinks, no nothing. Eventually Pepper convinced him to let her clean up his hair. After multiple failed attempts of that, Tony sedated himself so he wouldn't be thrown into a flashback when she was doing him a favor.

Sedatives for a wash? Yes, Tony was well aware of how incredibly fucked-up that was. 

It took another month before he could take a shower himself. 

He stumbled out of his room afterwards, wearing a bathrobe, his hair still dripping with water. Rhodey had been around that day, and immediately pulled Tony into his arms, bringing him back from the near-panic attack and mumbling reassurances. 

Another week, and Tony could shower without much issues, if it was a good day. 

Pepper convinced Tony to go back to the Malibu house, and it was horrible for the first week- the water, surrounding them. Tony kept feeling the house tip over, burying them in the sea, where the air pocket got smaller and smaller and even as he craned his neck and gasped and sputtered for the last of the air the water got into his throat and lungs and burned as there was no more air and suddenly he was back in that _goddamn cave_ -

After the first week it got better. 

'Got better'. Ha. Yeah right. 

No- Tony was only getting worse. Because after Afghanistan, the list just kept going. Blood toxins, backstabbing secret agents, New York- aliens, wormholes, faces from the past, watching a suicide, loosing a good friend, PTSD, anxiety, insomnia, dropping Pepper, extremis, loosing the ARC reactor- Ultron, loosing JARVIS, SHIELD falling apart, nightmares of Captain America, his childhood hero, killing him or being killed by him- and finally, to top everything off, Pepper leaving him, the press attacking him viciously, a woman declaring that he had killed her son... Rhodey nearly dying, Ross pulling him by a chain, Aunt Peggy dying (and not being able to go to her funeral), Natasha's betrayal, oh! Right, the best part:

Steve defending his best friend, who had murdered Tony's mom, beating him and breaking the suit, and then leaving him in a Siberian bunker with no way home while he slowly bled out. 

If that could be called 'getting better'. 

And after all that shit, after everything, Tony still couldn't take a bath, he still couldn't get into a swimming pool, he still couldn't put his head close to a sink. Tony finally took Rhodey's advice and saw a specialist. 

Afterwards the specialist gave him a list and a box of medication. The first few lines of the list read: 

_Post-traumatic stress disorder, generalized anxiety, chronic depression, suicidal tendencies, aquaphobia, insomnia, abandonment issues, chronic alcoholism,_

Tony didn't read any further than that, and instead trashed the note and the box, fired the specialist, and never brought it up to Rhodey again. He already knew he was fucked-up, he didn't need another addiction and a therapist to tell him that. 

"You been getting rest?" Rhodey had asked conversationally.

Normally, Tony would've said 'yep', popped the 'p', shown a mask of arrogant indifference. With anyone else, he would've lied and proclaimed how fantastically well he was. But it was Rhodey, and Rhodey was still limping around in braces, and Tony couldn't lie to Rhodey anymore.

Tony fidgeted, eyes darting away. "...Not really. No surprise, though. I'm fine."

...Alright, maybe he could lie a little. 

Rhodey shot him a sad look. "I'm here for you, Tones. You need anything, you tell me. Hell- you _want_ anything, you just say the word."

Tony ignored the sting behind his eyes and just shot back a strained smile. "Most you can do is stay alive and get better, honey bear. That's all I want."

Somehow, after everything, Tony was really just tired. He didn't have the energy to be angry with Barnes. He didn't have the willpower to go find Steve and his band of vigilantes. He didn't have the guts to go talk to Pepper, he didn't have the heart to see the woman who's son he'd murdered, he didn't have the time to fix all of his problems.

He was exhausted from life. From a life of disappointments, of wrong-choices, of mistakes. 

Howard didn't want him. SHIELD and the Avengers didn't need him. Pepper left him. 

Tony didn't care about anything or anyone, with only one exception: Rhodey. Rhodey was the only person who mattered, and his recovery was the only thing Tony cared about. Instead of building more suits, or inventions, or upgrades, Tony poured money into a perfect recovery for Rhodey. 

There was no Jarvis to keep Tony from drinking to death, or working to death. No Pepper to say comforting things, to do the right thing _all the time_. No Coulson. No team. No war. No ARC reactor, with it's little blue light. There was Rhodey and there was recovery. 

So he dropped out of the party-scene. Set apart things in his will, things for Harley, things for Peter, things for Rhodey. Stopped running SI, burned the suits- both metal and thousand-dollar fabric ones, Tony tossed out the cars and the shiny things he had built his legacy on. 

He wasn't an Avenger, he wasn't a super hero, he wasn't a hero- he wasn't a playboy, or a celebrity, or a story in the press. He was no longer the suit, he was no longer _The_ Tony Stark, he was just-

"Tones."

"Yeah?"

"Thank you."

And somewhere in there, Tony thought that maybe he never needed a legacy to be a great man.  
And what turned him into a good one was changing what his father had laid out for him.

Tony wakes up in the morning without an AI speaking to him. No holograms, no fancy mechanics. No interviews. Just a best friend making breakfast in the next room. 

Tony realizes he's happy.

**Author's Note:**

> well jfc I wasn't expecting that  
> I live for comments so if you liked it (or hated it) please leave something-or-other


End file.
